Russians might not necessarily love being called tovarish, but hearing that form of address was like someone calling you "Brother" in The Water Margin, "My Lord" in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, or "Great Sage" in Journey to the West.
Compared to the small fry who only knew how to scream for mercy, whenever you ran into someone who could hit the right keywords, you naturally had to pause and pay a little more attention. You'd want to see who this person actually was, rather than just walking up and putting a bullet through him right away.
Besides, he had also shouted khorosho.
For a captive who surrendered in English yet knew how to say tovarish and khorosho, giving him a few extra seconds to plead his case was fair enough.
And the moment Sokholov said not to shoot and to see what was going on first, this enemy attempting to surrender had already succeeded more than halfway.
"Drop your weapon! Put your hands behind your head and come out slowly!"
The rifle with toilet paper wrapped around its muzzle was lowered. A man with his hands clasped behind his head duck-walked slowly out of the dugout.
Walking in that crouch was agonizingly awkward. The moment he emerged from the dugout, his knees buckled and he pitched forward. He quickly thrust one leg out to brace himself on one knee, keeping both hands locked behind his head, and shouted, "I was tricked into coming here! I was tricked! This is my first time on the battlefield, really! I don't have any of your people's blood on my hands! Please don't kill me!"
He was wearing a helmet, leaving only half his face visible, but his chin sported a thick, brownish beard. Judging by that visible half alone, he wasn't terribly old, though definitely well into his thirties.
Guarding and escorting a prisoner to the rear tied up manpower. Right now, the battle was raging fiercely—how could they spare precious men to watch a captive?
Leaving him alone was even more out of the question. If they let him go, he could just pick up a gun the second their backs were turned and rejoin the fight. Even if they broke both his legs and left him on the position for rear personnel to pick up, he could still pull the pin on a hand grenade to take someone down with him.
All in all, in this kind of fight, there shouldn't be any prisoners, and no one would keep one alive.
Sokholov didn't even know what to ask. After pondering for a moment, he finally asked with hesitation, "Who sent you..."
"No one sent me! I'm a mercenary! I was tricked! The Ukrainian recruitment office forcibly pressed me into service!"
Hearing Sokholov speak English, the captive instantly perked up. Overcome with excitement, his voice trembled with near-tearful relief. "I was tricked into this, but I couldn't leave! The barrier troops are right behind us—if we pull back, they shoot us dead! I don't speak Russian, and I didn't even know how to surrender! Thank God, thank God I ran into you!"
Sokholov traded glances with the man beside him. Glaski looked just as bewildered. The two of them were still debating whether to just put a bullet through this prisoner's head.
Whether he had been tricked or pressed into service didn't matter. The problem was they couldn't release him, nor could they keep him. The only option left was to kill him.
The captive spoke at lightning speed: "Everyone here is an international fighter! We were assigned to oversee that squad of Ukrainian recruits up front. God, they were only drafted three days ago and hauled out here to die! Some of them don't even know how to fire a rifle! There were eight of us. The anti-tank missile was manned by a three-man American team, and others handled rocket launchers. We were under strict orders to hold this position without taking a single step back. The barrier troops are right behind us, and anyone who retreats gets shot instantly. We're just fish stranded on the beach waiting to die!"
He rattled all this off in one breath. When he finished, he hastily twisted around and pointed behind him. "Over in that direction, there's a twelve-man squad of barrier troops! They've got a machine gun locking down the only passageway, less than thirty meters behind us! Be careful—it's a fortified machine gun position!"
First, claim he was tricked. Next, claim he was forcibly conscripted. And make sure to emphasize he had no Russian blood on his hands—all to win sympathy and buy himself time to survive.
Then, prove his intelligence value.
When someone ended up as a captive, what else was there to do? All that mattered was seeing what intel could be squeezed out of him.
Hearing that a fortified machine gun position was less than thirty meters ahead, Sokholov asked in confusion, "A machine gun position? How is it set up?"
"It's not set up to hold you guys off. It's meant to stop frontline troops from fleeing or routing! Across roughly one kilometer to the left and right, multiple trenches converge into the communication trench guarded by the barrier troops before anyone can pull back."
The captive swallowed hard. Lowering his left hand entirely from behind his head, he pointed toward one end of the trench. "From here forward, you have to go around two bends and push through the fortified bunker held by the barrier troops. About a kilometer past that is the Ukrainians' reserve trench. Your offensive today was too fierce; their defensive line has fallen into chaos. Right now, they're desperately organizing and retrofitting the reserve trench to use as their final line of defense."
Sokholov's eyes lit up. "One more bunker and this main position is breached?"
"Yes! Yes!"
The prisoner nodded vigorously, speaking with absolute conviction: "There's no one left! I asked those recruits—they were forcibly drafted only three days ago. Ukraine really has no one left now. Right now, there are only a handful of veterans holding things together, plus organized units from several NATO countries acting under the guise of mercenaries. I know of a German unit, an American unit, and a technical unit cobbled together from European countries to operate heavy equipment."
Sokholov nodded. "You... mm... what's your name?"
He had hesitated—really hesitated. Asking for a name meant Sokholov no longer wanted to kill the captive.
"My name is Parker. I'm an American, a mercenary, but I really was tricked into this! I've been working in Africa and the Middle East. A friend I knew told me they needed instructors over here and the pay was huge, so I came to check it out. I only went to the recruitment office to ask, but the moment I stepped inside, they locked the door behind me and shipped me straight out here!"
The prisoner's name was Parker. With an aggrieved look, he poured out his helpless predicament, spreading his hands with a bitter plea: "I didn't even dare hope I'd get out of here alive, but what I really want is to turn my gun on those barrier troops! I'd die happy just taking them out! Sir, please, give me a chance. Give me a chance to prove it to you, alright? I'm surrendering for real. I'll fight alongside you guys to wipe out the barrier troops' bunker, how about that?"
To survive this long on a battlefield like this, under conditions like these, Parker was clearly no ordinary soldier. He had a remarkably slick tongue—and, of course, a quick mind to match.
Sokholov didn't have time to interrogate him further. Waving his hand a couple of times, he said to Parker, "You know where the barrier troops are positioned, right?"
"Yes!"
"Grab your rifle and take point. You want to kill the barrier troops? Fine, I'll give you your chance."
With that, Sokholov added in all seriousness, "Perform well, and I promise you'll make it to the POW camp alive."
Chapter 35